Pair: 2nd Lieutenant H. C. Lake, Royal Air Force, late Royal Naval Air Service, who was killed in a flying boat accident at Calshot in April 1918

British War and Victory Medals (2 Lieut., R.A.F.), together with related Memorial Plaque (Harold Caldecott Lake), generally extremely fiine (3) £250-300

Harold Caldecott Lake, from Clerkenwell, London, was appointed a probationary Flying Officer in the Royal Naval Air Service in November 1917, and attended No. 209 Training Depot Squadron at Calshot. And it was while piloting a Franco-British Aviation Company (F.B.A.) Type B Pusher Biplane (Flying Boat Trainer) at that establishment on 6 April 1918 that he was accidentally killed, the subsequent Court of Inquiry finding the tragedy was due ‘to inexperience on the part of the pilot. He appears to have put the machine on a glide without cutting off or throttling down his engine. This action must have thrown him over on to the controls causing the machine to nose dive throwing him out of the [flying] boat.’ Aged 21 years, Lake was buried in Wandsworth (Putney Vale) Cemetery.